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Full story: I was flying for Atlanta to Providence and I was sitting towards the back of the plan where a bathroom was. I was roughly 5 rows from the restroom and this little annoying 5 year old girl sat behind me and repeatedly kicked my chair (irrelevant but I am still unhappy about it). About halfway through the flight, this reasonably attractive college-age girl got up and walked past me and entered the bathroom. About a moment later, a guy, roughly the same age and probably her boyfriend stood up and walked back to the bathroom. As he was about to knock on the door, the annoying little girl behind me yells, "You can't go in there! That lady just went in there". The man put on the biggest deer-in-the-headlights look I have seen in all my life and his face grew redder and redder with each step as he walked back to his seat. A few minutes later, the girl comes out of the bathroom and returns to her seat right next to him and we all knew.
TL;DR Cockblocked by a preschooler.

Not me, but my best friend in high school, Jonny and his brother Josh were meeting their sister to go on a flight from London to Paris. They met their sister Liz during her layover from the US to Paris and they all were about to board the same flight when it got delayed. Jonny and Josh both had been out of the US for quite some time and decided now that they had time, they wanted a 'big american breakfast' so they sat down at a place with steak and eggs, ordered and started eating. Liz looked up on the board and saw their flight blinking and checked it out, and in a panic came back to say, we're boarding hurry! The two of them slammed down the steak and eggs and ran to the plane.

They got on just in time. As they were shutting the door Josh, who was sitting next to Jonny, started to not feel well, he got that weird rumbling in his stomach that everyone immediately knows is the surest sign of incoming diarrhea. Josh stepped into the aisle and walked toward the lavatory, but first he had to get past the flight attendant who was on one of those fold out bench things. He tapped her on the shoulder and she looked at him in a horrified manner and said "sir! you can NOT be up right now, this is an international flight (post 9/11) and you must be seated" He tried to reason with her and explain the situation but she wasn't having it and he went back to his seat.

Later as they were on the ground taxi-ing to the runway Josh was visibly uncomfortable, shifting positions in his seat, clearly in pain. As they sat on the runway waiting to take off Josh began gripping the armrests with white knuckles and profusely sweating as he tried to contain his anger and the incoming tidal wave of shit. By the time they had taken off Josh was yelling down at the the attendent "ma'am! I am going to be ill! Please for the love of God let me go to the bathroom!" She was yelling back and causing quite a scene.
[Side note: this was a flight from London to Paris. Half the people didnt even speak English, so in the midst of all the commotion you have people freaking out, translating for each other, and not knowing whats going on.]

Its at this point Josh makes a decision, one to this day he says he has had success with in the past. His plan was to "let a little bit out to relieve the pressure." Sure enough as soon as he let a bit out it ALL came out and his pants ballooned up around him as they filled with liquid shit.
There was silence in the cabin. Then like some sort of orchestrated plan, the smell hit everyone at once and they all reached up to frantically turn on the air vents above them. An older french woman vomited. The attendant is being yelled at by their sister Liz, Jonny is consoling Josh and Josh is sarcastically yelling, 'thanks a lot (airline) now I have to sit here in my own filth, thats right, I shit my pants everyone!'

As the commotion died down the attendant came over to him and apologized and said while there was nothing she could do, he was creating quite unfit flying conditions. and needed to go get cleaned up. The pants he was wearing were tough canvas and waterproof so they kept the liquid in and for lack of a better idea he tucked the bottom of his pants in his cowboy boots and stood up filling the boots and the pants to just under his knees.
He went to the bathroom and to the best of his ability tried to clean up. After about half an hour Jonny went to check on him. Josh asked him one very telling question: "Hey so do you have any clothes on your carryon" Thats right. They both didnt have clothes for Josh. Jonny went back to ask Liz for ideas and she gave the only two options available: a yellow sundress and super bright white shorty shorts.

Josh took the shorts (theres a huge height difference between Liz and Josh so the shorts looked even shorter on him. There he was, emerging from the bathroom in a long sleeved flannel plaid shirt, cowboy boots and the whitest shortest shorts imaginable. And thats the way he had to go through French customs.

tl:dr friend shit his pants on an airplane, an elderly woman threw up and he ended up dressed in white daisy dukes.

My mom's a flight attendant, so she always tells me all these stories of the people she's had to deal with. This one is the weirdest:

Once, this man boarded the plane with a giant teddy bear, who he happened to purchase a seat for. The man buckles up the teddy bear in the seat beside him and lets down the little table for the bear, too. My mom went to take his order for drinks and he ordered two beers, one for him and one for the bear. He also ordered the bear a meal and bought the bear headphones so they could watch the movie together.

Pay him a bunch of money to do this whenever he's out in public for a couple of weeks. I'd assume eventually it'll get noticed by at least the trashy celebrity press. Maybe use some shill accounts on reddit and the like to post pictures of him doing it as well.

Our plane was descending and a flight attendant was walking up the aisle asking everybody to put their seatbelts on and close their tray tables.

There was an annoying bitch in the row ahead of me who was a pain in the ass all flight, she was asleep and the flight attendant asked her a couple of times to wake up, and then lightly tapped her on her shoulder. She jerked awake, paused a moment, and smacked the flight attendant across the face. The flight attendant asked for an apology, but the bitch flipped out at her and said she invaded her personal space.

The flight attendant left and got the head flight attendant to talk to her, and she gave her an earful as well. The flight attendants had police waiting at the airport. I really hope she got charged.

The worst part is her bf was sitting next to her wide awake the whole time. He could have woken her up at any time, but just sat there and let the flight attendant do it for him.

When I was flying to the US for work I was sat next to a Russian guy whose English wasn't that good.

He was having difficulty filling in the immigration forms, so I used my best pointy finger to indicate the various details in his passport and show him where to write them on the form.

I was in the immigration queue standing next to him and his daughter (whose English was brilliant, btw) joined him - she was sitting further down the plane. He talks to her in Russian for a bit and then she thanks me for helping him fill in the forms. Then tells me why they're travelling to the US...

Turns out at the height of the cold war, her dad was a radio operator in the Russian military based in Cuba. One of his jobs was to monitor frequencies used by the US military. Anyhoos, one night when he was bored he went away from protocol, pressed his talk button and asks (on a US freq) is there any one there. He gets a reply from a guy in the US Army and strikes up a conversation (in Russian, I guess). Nowt of import was said and these two dudes start chatting quite a bit when they were both on duty at the same time and it was quiet.

They'd swapped contact details when his deployment in Cuba was over and kept in touch and now he was in the US to meet the guy 25 years after talking to him on the radio.

I loved the story, so had to share.

TL;DR. Two military guys on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain made friends over the radio and finally got to meet each other twenty five years later.

When I was really about 4 or 5, my parents and I went to Florida for Disney World and to visit my grandparents. On the flight there, there was turbulence, so the pilot casually announced that there was a herd of rhinos in the sky that was causing all of the rumbling. I believed it until I was 8.

A guy had a mild heart attack in the row behind me while on a flight from Paris to New York. They turned us around a little less than halfway across the Atlantic so we could get him off the plane in London. It was the only time I've ever heard someone get on a PA system and ask if anyone there was a doctor.

My grandfather actually died in flight from Bermuda back to the states after his vacation there, he had a heart attack about an hour into the flight and they turned the plane around and landed at the nearest airport, but he was dead on arrival.

A few years later my grandmother decided to take another trip to Bermuda to remember the good times they had there... she didn't make it home either.

This happened to my parents while flying from Sydney to Dubai. A woman became quite unwell and the stewardess asked if there was a doctor on board. Turns out there were four doctors, one of whom was sitting directly behind the unwell woman, and two nurses on board. Talk about luck!

Woman was taken off the plane by wheelchair when they landed, apparently wasn't serious enough to divert the plane.

My brother in law got a free flight because he answered a similar call. I imagine it'd feel really good being needed like that but it keeps happening at annoying times. Romantic dinner ruined by some other jerks allergic attack, relaxing airplane trip not so relaxing any more, etc.

I once sat next to Flavor Flav on a flight from Denver to Chicago. He was tiny, was wearing three clocks around his neck, and was a sheer delight to talk to for two hours. As we landed, he got on the plane intercom and attempted to countdown to the landing, upon which he shouted his name and everyone cheered. Good ol southwest

I am a classical cellist, and I travel a lot with my cello. Checking my priceless instrument seems to risky, so I always have to buy a seat for it. An expensive, but very safe thing to do. Well obviously a cello on an airplane is not very commonplace, and people usually freak out a little bit. Im used to the weird stares etc. This one time I was on my way to michigan and I was seated in a three seat row with my cello on the window, me in the middle, and a very small russian woman on the aisle. About half way through the flight she woke up and started screaming and freaking out. Someone on the plane spoke russian and interpreted to me and the flight attendant that she thought my cello case was a bomb, and that she wasnt ready to die. None of this was helped by the fact that i am black. Well she wouldnt shut up, so in the middle of the flight I unpacked my cello and played her a Bach piece. I got a lot of confused looks.

Edit: I also have a personal policy of: everytime the flight crew gives me crap for bringing my cello onboard, I take the seatbelt extender that they give me to strap in my cello. Ive amassed quite a few

not really an airplane story BUT i have to share it. when i was about 6 there was a war in my country and my mom decided to send me to live with her relatives in new york for a while.
we part on an airport in vienna and a nice stewardess takes over the 6 year old me. we board the plane and we wait and wait and wait for hours. i have no idea what is going on because i don't speak german or english. after some more waiting we get off the plane and that nice stweardess takes me to their hq (i guess), and an older lady who speaks my language tells me the following: the plane broke down and we couldn't take off, the next flight is tomorrow. my mother is on a train to zagreb at that point. the year is 1990, there are no mobile phones and no ways to contact her. i'm six years old and i'm stranded on an airport in a foreign country. the nice stweardess decides to take me home with her. let's not forget she doesn't speak my language - i have no idea how we understood each other, but we somehow did. we drive in her car for miles and miles somewhere outside the city to her house. she has cats and i play with them. she feeds me and puts me to bed. the next day she wakes me up and gets me on that plane.
in the meantime my mother found out what happened and, of course, freaked out but there was nothing to be done at that point. my mom wrote a thank you letter to that stewardess and in return she sent a package with food and stuff because she knew about the war and wanted to help. that was the nicest thing ever. unfortunately, we lost contact after that. her name was irmgard. thank you, irmgard.

A guy pull out a cigarette mid flight, light that sucker up, ignore every repeated threat and warning the stewardesses had, and smoke that thing right down to the butt, right into a pair of handcuffs, and the honor of first off of th flight when we landed, laughing the whole time.

Have you ever been around a fire extinguisher when it went off? A friend of mine had the bright idea of doing that at a party, thinking it'd be fun. We ended up drunkenly evacuating his flat until all the dust settled. It wasn't fun. On a plane, you wouldn't really have that liberty, and as annoying it may be to the other fliers to have to deal with cigarette smoke, a fire extinguisher would ruin the entire flight. I know you're not being entirely serious, but that'd still just fuck up everyone's day.

While you're right about dry chemical fire extinguishers, those aren't used on planes.

Planes are equipped with Halon- and Halotron-based fire extinguishers, which are called "clean agents" for a reason. They're colorless and odorless chemicals which don't make a mess, are safe to use around sensitive electronic equipment (many datacenters are equipped with Halon or CO2 fire suppression systems), and don't inhibit your visibility.

So you won't fuck up everybody's day by shooting it at the smoker on the plane, but it also wouldn't have the same comedic effect because he'd basically just be blown by a jet of air.

Actually, come to think of it, that would probably still be just as hilarious.

They're also rather dangerous to use in an enclosed space, since they work by suffocating the fire (and anything else in the vicinity). That's one thing that amuses me about movies where people are standing in a server room when the extinguishers go off. That is an incredibly bad idea.

It would probably be alright assuming the whole extinguisher wasn't unloaded, given the size of an airplane, but I still wouldn't unload one into a guy's face.

Pilot here. One day I was taking a man up over a ranch of his just for kicks in a 1972 Cessna 172L. He asked if his son (teenager) and the son's girlfriend could ride along in the backseat. I of course replied in the affirmative. So we get to the airport, I do my pre-flight stuff, and we all cram in to the cabin. The father and I were in the front seat, with the two love birds in the rear two. We take off and after some decent time flying towards the ranch I notice while scanning around that the boyfriend was starting to get kissy with his girlfriend, two feet behind not only me, but his father, who was oblivious to it all. I pretended not to notice and the father was too busy looking out over the nose for his property. It got very awkward for me sitting up there not wanting to mention anything or hint that i knew what they were doing. I was just glad they moved their headset's microphones so we couldn't hear it. Anyways, this continued on roughly 5-ish minutes. Finally, the dad spots his land and swings around to point it out to his son. I turn around to see the ensuing hilarity, and see the father's mouth hanging open as his son's face is attatched to his gf's, totally clueless to either of us. After a silent second the dad punches his son on the shoulder and yells "Get the hell off of her 'till we're down!" They both sit up very stiffly, and very quickly and not another peep was uttered until after we landed.

When I was twelve, I was on a pretty nice flight outbound from Minneapolis, MN to San Diego, CA. Me and my family couldn't get seats all next to each other because my mother did not book them on time, so I ended up sitting a dozen rows back from them in a window seat next to a businessman and his associate. The businessman kept ordering gin and tonics, and every time the cart would come by I'd order a ginger ale. The attendant must have been pretty ditzy, because she kept mixing up our drinks. The business man didn't mention it until three drinks later, so at that point I'd had a bit of gin. When he mentioned it to the stewardess she turned beat red and apologized profusely, and asked if she could bring the guy three drinks on the house to compensate. He agreed.

When the drinks arrived, he pushed one over to me grinning, then ruffled my hair and told me I was a pretty smart kid. The rest of the ride was much more enjoyable as him and I talked about sports and stuff.

TL;DR - Was given three of another fellows alcoholic beverages on a plane by mistake at the age of twelve. When the guy decided to speak up about it, the Stewardess got embarrassed and offered him three free drinks as an apology, which he accepted. Like a boss he congratulated me on my rogue tactics and awarded me one of the drinks. Got tipsy on an airplane with a businessman twice my age, probably more. Rad.

I was flying to NY with my mother. We were both in aisle seats in the same row. It was early flight and we were exhausted. She had already passed out and I was beginning to doze off. I'm really about to fall asleep when I notice the lady in front of me reach across the aisle and pull my mom's purse out from under her seat. Since was in a semi-comatose state, I didn't really think anything of it.

After about a minute I realized what Hamas going on and woke up mom. I told her that the lady in front of me had her purse. She grabbed it back from the lady who said she had the same one and thought it was her's. My mom asked her to show her the purse that was he same, and of course the lady couldn't find it.

My mom looked through her purse and realized the following was missing: $500.00 (wedding gift for the wedding we en route to) and $50 in casino chips (my aunt aunt sent them to her from Atlantic City for her birthday knowing we would be going after the wedding).

The lady said she didnt take anything and stuck to her story that she thought the purse was her's. We called a flight attendant who called ahead to the port authority police. The lady sat with a blanket over her for the remainder of the flight. When we landed the officers came on the plane and escorted the woman off. We could either press charges an they would take her in, or do nothing. We pressed charges.

When we arrived at the police station to fill out the paperwork, the officers were all cracking up. Turns out that on the way to the police station the woman began crying and confessed she stole the money. They asked her where it was and she told them during the flight she had shoved it all IN HER VAGINA! Five $100.00 bills and two $25 chips, jammed right up there. They were calling her the human slot machine... pull her arm and money comes out!

The woman's brother came to the station and told us he was really sorry. She was an alcoholic and ha been in trouble for stealing before.

About three months later my mom get a check for the $500.00... and the original chips in a ziploc bag. The chips have since been redeemed at the casino. The cashier was not told this story.

TL;DR: My mom had $500 in cash and $50 in casino chips stolen on a plane... Thief tried to hide it all in her Vag.

Seriously, Dubai is loaded with slave labour; they entice workers over there, often Javanese and Filipinos, confiscate their passports, and force them to work on whatever shit is being built next and live in what amounts to slave camps. And that's just the guys. The female side gets a lot worse.

There was a UAE undergrad in my office back when I did tier 1 university tech support. She was always so cold to the Philippino-American girl and the male Vietnamese grad student who worked there.

I just assumed she was a snooty bitch. She was always trying to convince me to let her make me over so I'd find a husband--I'm a dyke, it was a pretty funny miscommunication. She treated everyone that way. Now I realize she honestly probably felt they were genuinely beneath her. It's...not a fun realization.

It's not on a plane, but... when I was about eleven, we were flying out of Japan after living there for a while. We were waiting around in the security checkpoint line, and I was bored, so I was sneaking peeks at the monitor for the carry-on bag metal detector the next line over. No one had anything interesting. Toothbrushes, jewellery... normal stuff. Just as we were about to get our turn though, somebody put a large wheeled bag on the metal detector the next line over.
When the metal detector scanned it, there was an extremely clear x-ray of a person curled into a ball and just barely fitting in this guy's carry-on.
The agent working that monitor saw it and called over a ton of other agents and they were all scrutinizing the screen.
So I poked my mom, got her to look, then the TSA (Or whatever they were called in Japan) agents saw us peeking around the barrier, covered the monitor, and pretty much just told us to proceed about our business. They closed off that security check lane, too. I don't know if the person was alive, or dead, or just the most accurately skeleton'd RealDoll in the world, but it definitely scared the airport agents.
So that was weird.

on a flight to hawaii a few years ago, my (then eight year old) brother and i were seated next to an exceedingly talkative woman. after a bit of polite chat, we discover that her nephew goes to my school, though i am not personally familiar with him. when the stewardess comes by with those touch-pad personal laptop things, my brother gets one and the woman is intrigued by it. she asks to see it, and my brother reluctantly passes it over. after a couple moments of examination, she tells us that she is an executive of the team that produces and sells these tablets, and would like to rent one in order to receive a customer experience.

when the stewardess brings the woman her tablet, she says the same thing, and is clearly a little miffed by the lack of response. my brother and i retreat into our headphones, which compels her to leave us mostly alone for the rest of the flight. near the end of the flight, the flight attendant comes around to gather the tablets for landing. when she reaches the woman, the woman states that she was not pleased with the customer experience because the battery turned off midflight and is showcasing their product poorly, and demands a refund of the tablet services because she is the executive director of the tablet company and etc. etc. etc. makes a huge fuss. eventually ends in giving the flight attendant a little shove, which sends all the other flight attendants flying into action to help calm the situation so everyone can settle down and let the plane land.

throughout the entire landing/taxi, she is frantically demanding my and my brother's contact information so she can obtain our help in launching a complaint against the behavior of the flight attendants, trying to convince us to write written, signed statements, even writing a simple statement and asking us to sign it when the plane lands. when the plane DOES land, first, a couple of officer-type-people for the airplane come on and ask my brother and i to get up, tell them we can get our bags later. we are directed into the front of the plane, where we stand in this hidden area between the cockpit and the rest of the plane. we have to stay there until evvveryone else gets off and had to answer some questions.

Not really a strange story, but a pretty cool one. I was flying from Madrid to Philadelphia. We were sitting on the runway in Spain when they announced that due to a technical issue we would have to re-route our flight to stay close to land the whole way. Apparently there was a computer glitch (BS excuse) that prevented us from crossing the Atlantic, so we went up past France, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and down eastern Canada into the US.

We ended up passing over Greenland right at sunrise and got an amazing view of the glaciers. This is something I never planned on seeing in my lifetime, but I'm so glad we had a technical problem because the extra 2 hours it tacked onto our flight was well worth it.

Rejected is just a terrible word to use. To be rejected by a 5 year old would imply that you originally asked something from the five year old. In this case, it would seem that a man requested sex from the five year old.

Army guy in his late 20s/early 30s sitting next to me, we chatted for a while, then he wrote a note on his iPhone asking if I wanted to join him in the bathroom and passed it to me. What is this, high school? I said no, he continued to sweet-talk me and try to convince me to come to the bathroom with him, even after I told him he was making me feel uncomfortable.

I was with my family. On the other side of me was my mother, my Colonel father, and little sister.

Mother saw the iPhone note, flipped out, told Father. Father proceeded to berate the ever-loving shit out of this Army guy. Threatened his job, demanded to know the name of his commanding officer, the whole shebang.

Army guy sat in his corner of shame for the rest of the flight. Added me on Facebook two days later.

For some reason, military guys stationed in Tokyo have horrible reputations and nearly every encounter I had with them while I was living there was bad. From trying to fight people on the subway to getting a little rapey with some Japanese girls in the dance clubs, I kept running into soldiers behaving badly. I really wanted to meet a cool soldier so they could hook me up with awesome American food from their stores on base.

I'm not paying attention to the comings and goings of the bathroom. The overhead light is green. I open the door. There is some 50/60 yr old woman in there that apparently didn't know how to lock the door. I couldn't close the door fast enough.

I was in a US Air Force C-130 (cargo plane) from Ali Air Base in Iraq (aka Tallil, aka Camp Adder) to Al Udeid Airbase in Doha, Qatar. A typical civilian airline will avoid storms and turbulence because keeping the paying passengers comfortable is important. The US Air Force doesn't give a good godamn if you're comfortable. Passengers in the back of a C-130 are cargo, end of story. On my particular flight we went through a really bad thunderstorm, directly through the middle of it. At first the lightning show was cool, but the turbulence was terrifying. We were hitting pockets of air (I'm not a scientist, so if I'm wrong, sorry) and dropping altitude over and over. Your ass would come off the seat for a few seconds then you'd be smashed into your seat by g forces. The 40 or so people on the plane were praying in several different languages and tough-guy soldiers were holding hands. Aaaaand then the vomiting started. The constant motion was too much for some people and they started losing their MRE lunches. Since you don't have a barf bag on a military cargo plane, you are forced to puke into the most convenient receptacle on hand... which in this case was a kevlar helmet. Once a couple of people puked into their helmets and the unbearable stench punched you in the face, more people got sick. The avalanche of vomiteers kicked off and about two thirds of the passengers ralfed. I've seen a lot of crazy, interesting, disgusting and astonishing things in my life, but nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. I experienced every single human emotion and about 4 new ones while watching people vomit in zero gravity. For split seconds their vomit would hang in mid air or actually curl upwards out of their mouths. Then gravity would resume and the puke would splash downwards. I watched in horror/fascination as helmets full of puke would emit tendrils of rising vomit columns which appeared to momentarily be alive, then drop back out of sight. The strobe light effect of the lightning, the overwhelming stench, the roar of the airplane and booming of thunder... these are the nightmares that haunt me. Not the two years on the ground in Iraq, but somewhere in the air over the Persian Gulf, on the way home, this is my trauma, this is my darkest hour.

On a family trip back home to England from New Zealand my father was playing flight simulator on his laptop and this annoying kid who was about 4 or 5 who had been sitting behind us and occasionally popping up over the seat back saw him and asked him what he was doing. I think I must have been still quite small myself but I remember him putting a finger to his lips and whispering:

"I'm flying the plane. The man in the cockpit is a front. I'm the real pilot, please don't distract me."

The kid's eyes got really huge and he sat back down in his seat and was a lot quieter for the rest of the leg.

on a flight to california a few years ago, a strange blue liquid began dripping on my brothers head. We told the flight attendants, and they started trying to find out what it was. Someone mentioned hydraulic fluid and there was a bit of low level panic, with the pilot apparently radioing back to base to get the schematics of the plane out and have a look at all the pipelines that run through the plane to try and locate a leak.

In the end they couldn't work out what it was and as it turned out - hydraulic fluid is red anyway (or something like that) so there wasn't any real problem or danger to the plane. But to compensate us for our trouble we got to visit the cockpit (this was pre 9/11) which was very exciting for little 8 year old me, and also they gave my parents two bottles of quite nice champagne.

When we got off the plane, my brother got his bag down from the overhead locker, and found that his water bottle had leaked and picked up the blue dye from his bag. but we didnt tell anyone that.

In 8th grade my school took us on a trip to Washington DC. The entire back of the plane was our class, and I happened to be sitting in the very back row, with my back directly against the lavatory. The walls aren't particularly thick, and I can hear the obvious sounds of cramped lovemaking coming from the lavatory. I turn to my friend next to me and say "I think somoene's joining the mile high club in there." Like a game of telephone this information makes its way forward through the 8th grade class until it reaches the chaperones in the front (at that point I'm assuming it was a tale of a semen soaked orgy). Our math teacher gets out of his seat and goes back to the lavatory and knocks on the door. In a quiet voice he explains "there's a whole planeload of kids right next to you, what the fuck are you doing?" The couple sheepishly departs the lavatory.

...to an explosive round of mocking applause from our entire class. I've never seen two adults look more embarrassed in my life.

tl;dr Couple had to do walk of shame down the aisle of a plane in front of 40 applauding 8th graders.

Seeing as I had to proof-read the various complaint letters, re-telling my mom's airline horror story is easy.

In 2005, she was on a sold out flight from NY to LA, sitting in the third row just behind the restroom/cockpit area. Across from her and one row up was a woman with not one, but two dogs. One lap dog and the other a fully grown black labrador. She figured they had to be service animals but there was no indication of that, let alone the fact there were two of them. Earlier, she had seen the same woman arguing with the gate staff. She had apparently bought an extra ticket and fully expected to bring her animals on the plane (not in cargo)...and they let her! That's not even the strange part of the story but to this day we still can't figure out how the hell she convinced an airline to go with it, especially in 2005. Oh to be a fly on the wall of that ticket counter...

Anyway, a few hours into the ~6 hour flight, an overpowering stench made its way from the front of the plane. At first my mom thought the bathroom had backed up, not realizing how those toilets work (suction vs. drainage). Come to find out the woman had taken her air-sick labrador into the restroom and tried to get him to use the toilet. Two words: diarrhea everywhere. Immediately the flight attendants huddled together around the door, my mom close enough to hear (and smell) their panic. They decided that cleaning it was a lost cause and that diverting people to the rear lavatory would be easier. However, the smell was still choking the front third of the plane, going right through the door. After entirely too long, they finally got it to die down with some sprays and shoving towels into the door gaps. Sadly, they had only contained the crime scene and not the poor, four-legged shit-machine in 2A. Five minutes later and the smell hits the crowd again only this time much stronger. The lab had evacuated yet again but this time in the open cabin, right below his owner and just a few feet from my mom. Napkins were handed out to help cover airways, overhead fans were cranked and panic starts to spread backward through the plane.

Now, we've always been dog-lovers so my mom felt absolutely terrible for it having to deal with such a dumb owner. That wasn't much comfort when the same process repeated two more times in the next hour or so, coupled with random vomiting by both dogs in the aisle. The worst part, she said, was the sound. Full plane, nowhere to go, downright brutal. Thankfully, by the third and final round of mile-high squirts someone had the bright idea to dump individual packs of coffee grounds on whatever they couldn't scrub up to help mask the smell. While not much consolation, it actually worked and they made it to LA without an all out barf-o-rama, "Stand By Me" style. In the end, my mother handled it far better than I would have. Probably because she had to raise a shit-machine of her own.

Bonus: That very same lady, who practically sprinted off the plane, also stole the wheelchair (and attendant) that was arranged to be waiting for my mom.

Side story: Worked on an aircraft for a smaller company that dealt mainly with 2-6 seat private aircraft in eastern Canada. Had one aircraft come in for inspection, so I serviced it myself (it didn't require more than one person) and then signed it off. I did a quick brake check and it was good to go. The aircraft went back to the customer and he took off shortly after that. 8 hours later I found out the aircraft had crashed and all 4 people on board died. It was horribly tragic. But I began to question if or not it was my fault, I was the last person to work on that aircraft.

It turns out the pilot made a flight error and lost control of the plane, and it had nothing to do with the repairs I did to the aircraft. But now, I have the article about that incident taped the the inside of my toolbox so every day when I go to work I am reminded that if I hadn't been so thorough, patient, and careful, I would have been responsible for their lives. Sometimes it's what scares me about this job.

On a severely delayed flight, I was seated next to a young man, 13-14 years old, who appeared to be very autistic much like Rain Man. He appeared to be very high functioning and was flying by himself, sent by his mom to visit his dad for the week. We talked for a while, but we really had nothing to talk about and the "back-and-forth" of the conversation wasn't really flowing. As the plane sat on the runway and waited for yet another storm to clear, the conversation with this little guy became increasingly more difficult. He eventually turned to a book and I brought out my Game Boy Advance and fired up some good old-fashioned Pac-Man.

He looked over with mild interest. After about 10 minutes, he was practically in my lap. He wanted to know what I was playing. "You've never seen Pac Man?" "No," the young man replied. "My parents don't allow me to play video games. Although I once played chess on my father's computer." This kid had not only never played Pac Man,...he'd never SEEN Pac Man. Since it was (and still is) my belief that it's somehow un-american that any child be deprived of the joy of Pac Man, I said "It looks like we're going to be here for a while, so I'm going to teach you how to play Pac Man."

He was puzzled as to why this game had been withheld from him for so long. He marveled at the simple, yet addictive gameplay, and got increasingly good over the next hour that we sat on the runway. Then,....he started to get obsessive. He began yelling at the gameboy. He would hit himself in the head when a ghost got him. He would rock back and forth and wail if he failed to beat his previous games' score. When we finally did line up for take-off, the attendant asked him repeatedly to turn the thing off and I thought he was going to kill her. He growled like an animal when I finally reached over and flipped the switch.

In the air, he played for the duration of the flight. I slept, periodically woken by a shriek forced through gritted teeth and the pounding of his fist against his forehead. This kid was hooked and hooked bad. Once, the attendant asked me if there was anything I could do about my son. I assured her that he and I were simply seated together and I had no authority over him. I wasn't gonna mess with this kid.

As we landed, I attempted to get my gameboy back, all the while picturing myself as the hostage negotiator in some cop movie. He begged me to let him keep it. He assured me that his dad was rich and could pay me well for it. He offered me the $20 he had as well as all the dragon books in his backpack. I politely declined. As we departed the plane, he had trouble finding his bag in the overhead bins and I took the opportunity to book it the hell out of there and lose him. I ducked into a restroom, but saw him searching the terminal for me.

When he found his dad at the baggage claim, there was no "Hi Dad!" or any other type of greeting. He immediately started begging to be taken to Walmart where he was sure that they could buy this game called Pac Man that some guy on the plane let him play. He had the fervor of a junkie in need of a fix. "DAD. I NEED PAC MAN NOW. I JUST NEED IT OKAY???"

I grabbed my bag and tried to slink away, but the kid spotted me and yelled "THAT'S THE GUY, DAD!" I can only imagine what the rest of the crowd thought as hundreds of disapproving eyes found me, but the Dad shot me a glare that said "Fucking thanks a lot, you fuck."

TL:DR - Kid on plane had the most severe case of Pac Man Fever on record.

TL;DR I met Lt. Dan on an airplane on his way back from Iraq on one way of a trip. Ended up with half the traveling cast of A Chorus Line on the way back.

Not the actor, just a really cool guy named Dan who happened to be a lieutenant. I flew in and out of Norfolk, VA for four years when I was going to school. I've been on planes with army, navy, air force, coast guard, marines, rangers, and cadets of all varieties Most of the time, it was maybe 5-10 people in uniform being deployed, and very somber faces.

Then there was that one flight with 88 marines coming from Iraq. They were pumped. After takeoff, the Lieutenant sitting next to me leans across my table a little and says, "Sorry about this. I just wanted to look at civilization." I thought that was a pretty insightful thing to say, so we started talking. That was a great flight, he was a very interesting guy. It's been four years and I could probably give you an almost verbatim retelling of the things we talked about he was such a great story-teller.

On the way back, I was with the predominantly male cast (maybe part of the cast?) of A Chorus Line. These guys had a lot of make up, a lot of glitter, and a TON of A Chorus Line merchandise on while talking about stage gossip. We hit particularly bad turbulence and there was one rather glittery-ed guy waving a barf bag around loudly lamenting about his motion sickness.

I just kept thinking, "Well. That was a round-trip of two polar extremes."

I got trolled by everyone on the plane when I was flying back from Chicago to Cleveland. I don't fly very much, I can count on one hand how many times I have been on a plane. This was also pre-9/11 so things were a bit more relaxed.

We had stopped at Midway and dropped off most of the passengers that were on the plane and very few got on. It was just a lay-over for me.

So there was only about eight of us on the plane. Which made me happy, we could spread out. I was joking around with the staff on the plane. The other passengers were actually super friendly too. So it kind of made the flight nice. Everyone was joking around with everyone. An odd experience to me.

Needless to say we hit some turbulence a little bit into the flight because of a snow storm coming off the Great Lakes. It was my first time experiencing anything more than a few seconds of turbulence.

I am not particularly fond of flying, I don't hate it, I am just not fond of it. I had my seatbelt on and had a deathgrip on the seat, like holding onto the seat would make everything better if the plane fell out of the sky.

The stewardess was awesome in trying to comfort me. She continued being witty and joking around with me and playfully making fun of me in a sarcastic manner. Witty banter is something I enjoy and it actually calmed me down. She could see how nervous I was. She basically told me it happened all the time and how she was just used to it.

The other passengers who looked like they were much more comfortable than me, and looked much more used to flying, were comforting me and talking to me to calm me down. The one passenger said "Nothing to worry about, if the stewardess isn't strapped in, it's not bad turbulence. When you hit your call button and she won't get out of her seat, then you need to worry".

So after being bounced around thousands of feet above the ground for about 45 minutes, we finally start to approach for landing. It was quite a hard landing in what little experience I have with flying. I am pretty sure the plane landed slightly sideways and then whipped straight when both sets of wheels touched the ground. It jarred everything.

This is the part where I think the stewardess, the pilots and the other passengers were working together against me. Right after that bone-jarring landing the pilot got on the PA system and said "OMG! I LANDED IT! I REALLY LANDED IT!" and the other passengers started to crack-up laughing.

At that point, I realized I was overreacting to what was minor turbulence during a flight and everyone on the plane knew it. As I was exiting the plane, the pilot was standing by the door, he had a huge smile on his face and shook my hand. All I could do was laugh about it.

I was flying to Texas to visit my sister at the beginning of this summer, having finished school for the semester. My friend drove me to the airport, and before I got out of the car, he handed me a hash chocolate another friend of ours had made. My local airport is small, I had a stop, but no plane change, and I figured the timing would work out pretty excellently.

I was a bit off.

I got through security alright, and had made it to the terminal, just waiting around for boarding to start. I had bought some snacks from the little news stands, that one type of trailmix I can only ever find in airports, with the little dried strawberries. I started snacking on it, listening to music, and the next thing I knew, almost the whole bag was gone, and I was high as fuck.

Boarding the plane, I noticed the parents of one of my friends. I knew it was them, for certain, because the very day before, they had treated several of their daughter's friends, myself included, to a graduation brunch in their daughter's honor. They were very friendly people, and I knew that if they saw me, they would try to sit next to me. I managed to avoid them, but a deep and true paranoia held me so tightly, I actually pretended to read a newspaper like some L.A. Noire shit.

Once assured I would not make contact with them, I laid my head on the window, and closed my eyes. As I lay there, I felt the engines start, the plane slowly start to back up, and pivot towards the runway. We picked up speed for the take-off, and right as I felt we were about to lift off the ground, I opened my eyes, and screamed.

We hadn't even left the gate, we were completely stationary. I lurched forward into the seat ahead of me, smashed my head into the tray table thing, gave the woman in the seat infront of me quite the jolt, and drew the attention of the flight attendant shutting the overhead compartments nearby.

All things considered, I played it off pretty cool. I had smacked my nose on the little plastic lip thing of the tray, so through cupped hands over my nose, I managed to say "I was asleep. And then I sneezed. Damn."

I watched as three overweight women almost got in a cat fight and escorted off the plane after they got in an argument a row infront of me. I guess two of them knew each other and were sitting in the middle and window seat, when the third came to sit down she was supposed to have the window. This results in an argument, some pretty intense yelling and name calling, and when the women got up to get a stewardess the two women poured water all over her seat. Since noone got kicked off the plane they had to sit next to each other the rest of the flight. That must have been wicked awkward. They yelled at each other a few more times and I remember two of them talking shit in Spanish and that really pissed off the other one. Way to much drama for a two hour flight.

This ones sad, but a guy two rows in front of me had a heart attack. It was really weird, straight out of the movies kind of stuff. The guys wife started screaming, and someone yelled "is anyone here a doctor?" (sure enough someone was) We had to make an emergency landing and EMTs came and took him off the plane. I think he ended up being ok, but it was still really intense.

TL;DR Witnessed an argument between three very overweight women. And in another flight a guy had a heart attack.

I sat next to a Muslim guy on a flight back home from college once. Once or twice he got up to go to the bathroom, and one of the times he brought his prayer rug in because I guess it was that time of the day. The lady sitting across from us is flipping her shit, and during one of his bathroom trips she notifies a flight attendant that she swears he's a terrorist. The entire flight she's staring this guy down, and towards the end of the flight, he turns to me, and in the biggest stoner voice I've heard in ages, asks me "hey maan, do you like, know what time it is?"

The lady heard this and had this stunned look on her face and received judging stares for the rest of the flight.

A few years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I was reading Game of Thrones (first book in ASOIAF) on a 7 hour flight from Portland to Baltimore. A cute elderly gay couple were sharing the row with me, and when you know what happens halfway through, I couldn't help myself, I started sobbing. One of the men snuggled me and said "I know, I know, I really hated that part, too." His hubby rolls his eyes, still holding the huggy man's hand and says "Oh gawd, I'm having flashbacks." We started chatting about other nerdy stuff and it was a much less awkward book story than yours.

I'll never forget the flight that within 5 minutes of take off, the co-pilot was on the PA explaining how to best avoid motion sickness due to the extreme turbulence we were experiencing (such as putting your head between your knees). It didn't help, because all I could think was that if he felt it necessary to start explaining that, we were going through some rough shit.

I was flying California to Texas alone as a fourteen year old little derp, and I got a window seat. This isn't bad, untill you realize that I'm Deaf in my right ear, and was sitting on the left side of the plane. Ironically, the guy next to me, was also Deaf, but in his left ear only. We talked and found this out, only after, we were both very pist at each other for not answering one another. TL;DR Half Deaf Kid doesn't hear other Half Deaf person.

In September of 2001, I was on one of the first international flights allowed back into the US after 9/11. Everything about the experience was weird; I'm not even sure where to start. I was fairly young, in grade school at the time, so I didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation as much as I might have.

Everything was...silent. The flight attendants forced their plasticy smiles and served drinks, but there was no cheerful banter. Nobody paid any attention to whatever the in-flight movie was. Everyone just sort of stared around with this fear tucked in the back of
their minds. We'd all seen the soldiers in full uniform patrolling the airport, guns prominently on display, and so we were silent. It wasn't a normal flight to say the least.

During the flight, the captain broke the silence with an announcement: we had just crossed into US airspace. Rhe flight attendants would be leading us in singing God Bless America. So we sang, and we were scared, and we cried. That was easily the most powerfully patriotic experience I have ever had, and it came in the midst of terror and utter silence.

I mean, the acting in that is awful even by infomercial standards. At one point, a guy apathetically moans "yuck, I hate broccoli." There's no passion, there's no hatred. I don't believe that you hate broccoli at all, man.

So that's awesome. My gf ridicules me because of it. Anytime it was on I'd stop and watch it. I finally bought one this one year it was on sale and she's like "pffft, you'll never use that" well I used that bad boy so much that I had to start rigging it so that it would work.

Some of the little plastic notches on the cups wore off, and they use those as a fail safe...so I had to by pass those...but I'll be damned if I didn't have my smoothies and home made salsa.

RIP magic bullet 2008-2010
That's badass though, I thought I was the only real die hard fan of the magic bullet infomercial.

I want to join in on this. I worked third shift in a group home for a couple years while that commercial was on all the time; my nightly routine consisted of cleaning the house while watching Adult Swim and then this infomercial, along with the Shark steam mop and foodsaver vaccuum sealing system. Modern goddamn classics. You are not alone.

Except she rejected him, so she's less sexually active than that slut Jenny from the playground on Third & Walnut. She's a cougar too, always chasing boys half her age. I feel bad for those little 2.5-year-olds. Just barely learning to talk and already need to tell her no means no.

On a flight, We were watching M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" as it had recently come out. He is obviously very well-known for his twists and surprise endings. As soon as we began descent, they turned the movie off, right before the big twist. As everyone lets out there grumbles of frustration, some guy from the back of the plane yells out the ending (which it's been so long, I honestly can't remember, that movie sucked anyway) and everyone went silent and stared at him with looks of pure rage. He slid into his seat knowing he just pissed off the whole plane as some old man in the row behind me muttered something along the lines of "I'm gonna punch that fuckhead in the throat".

I don't know if this is strange or whatever, but I was 8 on my first international flight by myself, visiting my dad in Japan. The crew were all really fucking cool, and they bumped me up to first class for the entire 17 hour trip across the pacific. Then, the pilots COMPLETELY DISREGARDED so many FAA regulations (this was only several months after 911 by the way) and let me sit inside the cockpit of an A340-300 at night, and let me look at all the cool ass features inside the cockpit. I'll never forget that day, totally turned me into the plane nerd I am now.

I had a guy sit next to me wearing a dress, busted makeup, earrings, and a full beard on a cross country flight. He said it was a bet with his wife who would be meeting him at the gate. He got quite drunk. As a closeted teen at the time, I imagined that was my future.

Seeing this chick (early 20's, obviously rich and spoiled, snookie-looking bitch weighing about a deuce, titties hanging out, etc.) who was sitting a few rows ahead of me in first class (I was in the first row of coach,) be escorted [read: dragged] out of her seat in first class and off the plane about 10 minutes after we boarded for refusing to get off her cell phone and calling the stewardess a cunt when asked repeatedly to please get off the phone and settle down (she was screaming.)

Apparently she was having a really important argument about money with her mother (possibly step-mother) that couldn't wait, as she was still screaming at her when they finally got her off the plane.

"You're such a fucking bitch, dad would never do this to me, I am getting thrown off my flight because of you you fucking cunt I hope you're happy, you better schedule me another flight, I can't believe you won't put that money in my account you're ruining my life I hate you, blah blah blah cunt blah blah blah money blah blah first world problems."

It was unbelievable. I was only 14 at the time, and being a poor kid from a poor town, had never encountered such a ridiculous, spoiled , fat little bitch. And she wasn't a kid, she was in her 20s, so there was NO excuse for her behavior. Who is allowing their children to grow up into such selfish, obnoxious and insufferable adults?

My cousin and I (we were around 6) were on our way back from Chicago with his parents. He was sick, and I had just recovered from spinal meningitis. There's a pregnant lady next to us, with his parents on the other side.

Now, my cousin gets pretty sick, and the plane must have upset his stomach, because he started spewing vomit everywhere. His mom grabs a bag, hands it to him, and starts to try to clean up the mess. She notices that some of the vomit landed on the frightened child-bearer's shoe, so she promptly wiped it up and apologized. The pregnant woman still seemed a bit terrified, so my aunt reassures her that he isn't carrying any spreadable disease, and that the fetus is safe.

You see, I was very happy to not be sick anymore, and felt like sharing my recovery with the pregnant woman. "I got spinal meningitis!" I happily proclaim. Her expression deadens. The stewardess won't let her change her seat, and she is pretty sure that I am going to infect her baby. It made the next 6 hours very uncomfortable.

I used to be an airborne traffic reporter. I was on a split shift for both morning and afternoon drive. My pilot and I would talk througout the flight and became buddies. He once told me the story of how he had to take a family for a tour. The 10 year old was kind of a brat and insisted on sitting in the front while his parents rode in the back. He then stopped the story to tell me, "If someone is about to vomit, they'll do whatever you tell them to." The kid started to get that look so the pilot screamed "Puke in your shirt! Puke in your shirt!" The kid obliged by pulling the neck of his shirt out and vomiting all over his chest. "Less clean up" the pilot told me...

TL;DR: When people are about to vomit, they are very susceptible to suggestions...

Oh man I have a bunch, but since I saw someone else post a similar one I'll share this one:

On a flight back from San Francisco (SFO) to Wasshington Dulles (IAD) when there is a lot of commotion in the back of the plan and a few flight attendants fly by past our seats. This is about 45 minutes into our flight. The purser then comes on the PA system asking for anyone who is a doctor to press their call button (this is actually not the first time I've heard this on a plane). Three people actually press the call button. In my head I imagine it was two MDs and a dentist and the latter is told his services are not needed. My corny joke aside.. Here is what happened next..

They go to the rear of the plane to tend to someone. At this point it is clear they have brought out an AED. This seems to indicate the person is likely not breathing. We are then notified over the PA by the pilot that we will be rerouting our landing to Las Vegas (LAS) for a medical emergency. I was flying United and on United you can often tune your headphones to channel 9 on the in flight entertainment to listen to air traffic control. It was interesting to hear the communications and how they basically held all landings for a short period for our flight. If I recall correctly they also gave our flight a new call sign .. We went from say UA942 to like Emergency 1 or something. I tried to look this procedure up online but could never find anything, so not sure if this is normal or my memory failing me or what.

So to continue/end the story. We landed and were very quickly met on the Tarmac by medical staff and police. We did not return to a gate and I'm not sure exactly how they got on board. I assume a ground to plane jet bridge thing. They carted or stretchered a single person off the plane. He was conscious. We then got back in line to take of 10-15 minutes later. We then learned they guy had a heart attack, had actually flatlined in the back after collapsing and I gather CPR was performed on him and he was shocked back to life with the AED. Pretty intense and lucky to be alive. The pilot came on the PA again some time later to update us to say the guy was OK. How he knew this for sure I cannot know.

One thing I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised no one bitched about being delayed. I've seen enough assholes on planes that I almost expected it. However there was a clear aura of "I hope this never happens to me or anyone I love and if it does I hope to god the outcome is the same.". It was an electric feeling.

*took only 50 hours to type this from my iPhone in bed, so please excuse any typos as I am not going to proof this!

When I was really little, I was on a plane to Vancouver with my mom, but we were sitting in different rows. I don't remember why, but I was absolutely fascinated with the dinner trays, and how they could fold up and down. It was just a marvel of engineering for my like, 6-year-old brain.

Anyway, I spent a good 20 minutes snapping the tray up and down, up and down, up and down. The gentleman beside me was not happy. He turned to me and said "if you snap that tray one more fucking time, I will throw you off this plane myself." Obviously I was terrified. I burst into tears, called the flight attendant (cue "Shame on you!"s) and got a hug from my mom. Then the flight attendant took me to the cockpit where I got an Air Canada fanny pack and a little wing pin for my shirt.

Wow. Reading this story reminded me of the time I sat in front of a probably 4-5 year old boy who did the exact same thing. And when the dinner trays snap up and down, you can feel EVERYTHING. One of the worst 4 hr flights I ever had.

I was on a relatively late flight from Atlanta to Connecticut recently -- the final leg of the journey from hell -- and noticed there was a couple and their small child in front of me. I vaguely overheard them discussing changing him into a diaper for the 2.5 hour flight, but didn't think much of it.

About halfway through the flight, I notice my feet are damp, and something is dripping from the seat in front of me onto my backpack with my laptop in it. I tap the woman on the shoulder, and let her know her son's drink must have spilled. Her eyes get wide, and she turns around and starts cleaning it up without a word.

About five minutes later, I tap her on the shoulder again and ask her if it was water. She just says "Uh, no..." and turns around embarrassed.